The Zoologist/4th series, vol 4 (1900)/Issue 709/Notices of New Books
NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.
Surrey, to the regret of many of its residents and of all its naturalists, is, to use the words of Mr. Bucknill, rapidly "degenerating into a colossal suburb." To those who were born in the county, and have passed their lives there, the truth of this saying is painfully apparent, and the success of the "City man" now too often means the disfigurement of the Surrey hills. The hand of the builder has fallen very heavily on this lovely county, residential estates are being opened out, and many of the rarer birds vanishing from its boundaries. The feræ naturæ are receiving notices to quit. The preservation of game in this county seems too often designed to afford a London holiday, and the keeper decides what members of our fauna shall be exterminated in the supposed interests of his employers.
We are very thankful for this book, which gives the census of to-day; what it will be reduced to in another fifty years no man knoweth! Even now many of the rarer birds are confined to restricted haunts which may not be mentioned, and the writer of this notice only last May watched the Stone-Curlew within an hour's walk of the busy town of Croydon. The Magpie is sadly becoming less known every year, and villagers in many parts will tell you how they could always procure a nest, if wanted, with little trouble some years back. Now a solitary appearance is, in many parts of Surrey, quite an event. The Jay still survives the persecution of the keeper, and is probably in many woods much more abundant than is generally supposed. The Sparrow-Hawk is considered by Mr. Bucknill as "undoubtedly decreasing," though this year its visits to a poultry-yard at Warlingham on more than one occasion has proved that it does not restrict itself solely to the game-preserves around.
The writer has compiled with care, and, we are gratified to see, largely from these pages. Much, however, is still to be learned about the birds of Surrey. Many considerable areas and little visited spots have not been sufficiently patrolled by the intelligent or judicious collector, whose operations for good or evil? have now been considerably curtailed by the legislature, and whose reputed powers of mischief on our avifauna, even in the cause of science, cannot be compared with the ignorant and ruthless destruction by the keeper, or the diabolical injury done by village bird-nesting urchins. But in an era of amiable fads and crotchets the British zoologist must lay low, and do good by stealth. In the coming years our records will be more of species supposed to have been seen than of those actually handled and correctly identified. The recent apotheosis of the Sparrow is an illustration of what may occur.
'The Birds of Surrey' should find a place in most county homes, but we were a little surprised to find no reference in the bibliography to the late Alfred Smee's 'My Garden,' which refers to the parish of Beddington and the river Wandle, and contains an interesting list of birds found in that section of the county.
Another county has now had its ornithological fauna described, and it is singular that Cheshire has had to wait so long, though we read that "ornithology has found but few votaries among Cheshire naturalists"; and again, that, "compared with many other English counties, Cheshire has a remarkably poor avifauna." One hundred and ten species breed or bred until recent years within the county boundaries, but it is among the casual visitors rather than the residents that the deficiency is apparent.
The authors have, however, produced a volume which will not only be of value to all lovers of birds in Cheshire, but will afford interesting reading to that ever-increasing body, the intelligent students of British natural history. In fact, such books as these, which freely enter country houses, must do much to foster a love of nature in circles where more scientific zoology is taboo. Among vertebrates, birds hold the same position as the Lepidoptera in the invertebrates; they are ever popular, and evidently appeal to the æsthetic sense. In any smoking-room men can be found who can say something about birds, while other animals, save such as appertain to sport, are too often distinctly caviare. We may therefore be thankful to ornithologists for always keeping their lamps trimmed, and sustaining a general interest in zoology. One seldom reads a county book on birds without meeting with new or little-known facts, and this publication is no exception. Thus we are told that our old friend Corvus frugilegus often exhibits a preference for a particular tree in a rookery. "At Wythenshawe, Mr. J.J. Cash has counted forty nests in a single sycamore, which comes into leaf earlier than the surrounding elms and beeches."
The volume is embellished with six photogravure illustrations, and a map of the county.
This book may be described as a charming reverie on the Sussex downs by a naturalist. These bracing and rolling highlands are appreciated by two classes of visitors—the artist and the naturalist. The first absorbs the wild and somewhat monotonous scenery, and returns with a landscape engraven on his heart; the second patiently endeavours to read Nature's hieroglyphics, and to many, probably, appears as a lone and strange creature, like the local shepherd. Jefferies was the apostle of this method, and has evidently founded a school of thought which writes in prose what some of the older poets felt and sang in verse. But we shall never receive in print the deepest thoughts that Nature sometimes imparts; these things are fugitive, and never written. It is only a legend that the finest impressions of humanity may be found in books; the individual who might wish to print what should be unutterable is certainly outside the musings of the Sphinx. After all, the naturalist can only record facts; of his impressions he knoweth not whither they come or go. We would all gladly recall, if we could, some of these mysterious whisperings, but the quest is too often futile.
Mr. Hudson has wandered over these downs with his acquired natural history knowledge, an open mind, and his field-glass. He has described much of what he saw, and a good deal of what he thought, and he has regarded Nature through his own spectacles, and introduced remarkably little of other people's theories. Consequently he has produced a most readable book, the style of which is in unison with the quiet and lorn country which he writes about.
We read that the Long-eared Owl frequented, "and probably bred, in the thorn, holly, and furze-patches among the South Downs until recently"; and he refers to what in humanity has been called "pre-natal suggestion," as exhibited in a lamb with an Owl-like face, which lived for a few days only. He also gives some quite startling facts as to the quantity of Wheatears formerly destroyed by the shepherds at the instigation and remuneration of the poulterers, and truly observes:—"It is not fair that it should be killed merely to enable London stockbrokers, sporting men, and other gorgeous persons who visit the coast, accompanied by ladies with yellow hair, to feed every day on 'Ortolans' at the big Brighton hotels." Ultra advocates of the theory of mimicry will find some remarks worthy of consideration respecting the Common Snail (Helix nemoralis). The shell of this species is on the downs mostly of one type, the ground colour being yellow, or yellowish white, with broad black longitudinal bands, and "often startles a person by its curiously close resemblance to a small portion of a highly-coloured Adder's coil. This chance resemblance to a dangerous creature does not, however, serve the Snail as a protection from his principal enemies—the Thrushes. Wherever there is a patch of furze, there you will find the 'Thrushes' anvil,' usually a flint half, or nearly quite, buried in the soil a few feet away from the bushes, and all round the anvil the turf is strewn with shattered shells."
This book is the narrative of a useful and successful life, passed for the greater, and certainly for the probationary period, in that administrative forcing-house where so many reputations have been made—British India. The author has distinct claims to be ranked among zoologists; his 'Thanatophidia of India' is the result of long, original, and valuable work on the intricate subject of Snake-poisoning; he was the proposer at the Council of the Asiatic Society for an ethnological investigation of the Indian races, which produced Dalton's reports on the different tribes in Bengal; and he projected the idea of the Zoological Gardens at Calcutta, which he subsequently had the satisfaction of seeing fully accomplished.
In the volume as a whole, the reader will not find very much distinctly zoological information, but he will meet with a most entertaining history of his own time, which after all is the period whose story we can appreciate best, for it appertains to the incidents belonging to our own sojourn on the planet, and of these we know most. There is a romance in the past, but a reality in our own lives, and Sir Joseph Fayrer takes us again over the old ground. The Indian Mutiny and the Prince of Wales's visit to India are the connecting links of interest, though perhaps both subjects have already reached the stage of exhaustive record.
The myth of the great Sea-serpent is again before us. The author had corresponded with Lieutenant Forsyth, of H.M.S. 'Osborne,' relative to "a marine creature seen by the officers of that ship not far from Sicily." Sir Joseph is of opinion that "it can hardly be doubted that the numerous reports that we have had from time to time, though many of them perhaps are not very well authenticated, are sufficient to show that some undescribed gigantic ophidian or sea creature still remains to be identified."
We are sorry to see at p. 59 a reference to the Toucan in India. The Hornbill there is generally so called, but the mistake should never be printed.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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